Police on high alert, told avoid arrests ‘unless absolutely necessary’

Police around the nation have gone on high alert, told by higher-ups and union representatives to wear bulletproof vests, keep off social media and make arrests only in cases most pressing and crucial to the safety of the public at large.

The warnings come on the heels of the daylight shooting deaths of two New York Police Department officers as they sat in their patrol cars Saturday. The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, shortly after shot and killed himself. Authorities later vowed he had put up a post on Instagram vowing to put “wings on pigs” in retaliation of police who had killed black suspects in recent months.

Fox News reported that police departments around the nation are sending out several advisories to officers to help keep them safe — even going so far as to tell them not to patrol alone, and not to arrest anybody except in the most dire of circumstances.

A message from a police union warned the 35,000-officer force in New York to now respond to every radio call with two cars, “no matter what the opinion of the police supervisor,” and to avoid making arrests “unless absolutely necessary,” Fox News reported.

Another memo warned officers in Newark, New Jersey, to keep from patrolling alone and to stay away from anybody seeking confrontations. And another New York Police Department chief told officers to keep a tight check on their comments “via all venues, including social media,” and only send out “expressions of sorrow and condolence,” Fox reported.